


Sleep To Dream Her

by audioletter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Falling In Love, Finn Learning To Be Human, Idiots in Love, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Kylo Ren/Rey, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey Has a Female Friend, Rey Ships It, Stormflower - Freeform, Teacher Poe Dameron, Tico Sister Feels, To her, Who Isn't a Threat, at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15870630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audioletter/pseuds/audioletter
Summary: She dreams.





	Sleep To Dream Her

_She dreams._

 

_Of ice, mostly. It’s solid under her feet and neverending in front of her, the blast of cold air as they leave the safe, warm tunnels of Hays Minor and walk out onto the landing dock almost knocking her down. The dock is ratty and unpolished like most of the planet; sheets of glassy frozen water filling gaps in the landing strip showing how forgotten and ignored this place truly was._

 

_It’s overwhelming, the cold, and she finally slips away from a crushing grip, pounding her feet against the ice without fully realising she’s doing it._ Fight or flight, _her sister calling her name like a cry lost in the wind, and her feet try and gain traction on the ice as if it were her saviour. It’s fruitless; she’s scooped up like nothing in seconds and she’s finally, achingly dragged into a nameless ship with her sister by a man she’d first met only twenty minutes earlier.  
_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Let - us - go!” Each word punctuated by a fist - it’s not enough, The Man reaching for his blaster in a silent threat so she stands to her feet and sticks her chin in the air. She’s barely three feet, barely old enough to understand_ why _it’s so cold and_ why she’s here, but her sister is seemingly playing along - dutiful, patient; walking in front of them with her head held high - so she decides to consciously make the effort to do so, too. She moves towards the ship like it’s her choice to, but silently, stealthily grabs tightly on to her sister’s belt.

 

_They sit, waiting to take off - “too risky,” she hears a husky pilot rasp, the irony not lost on someone even as young as her. One would suppose that, given what they’d been through, she wasn’t that young after all - and all she sees outside the ship’s dirty side window and through the flight gates is the vast expanse of snow her planet was so famous for that she’d not seen with her own eyes for a lifetime._ _  
_   
  
She’s glad she’s not alone, as her hand moves from her belt to her sister’s slightly bigger hand - and she vows never to fly without Paige again.

 

\---

  
“There’s not much I can say,” Finn had shrugged, almost boyishly, and Poe knew that look. A flick of the eyes up, then down; one to the side and a rub of a hand against hair - the man was smitten.

 

Poe’d been surprised when they’d come to him with the plan for taking down the First Order’s ship, but most of all, he’d been surprised by _her_. She was small - tiny, actually, is the word you’d use - but a firecracker kickin’ up sparks and he was immediately drawn into her orbit. Like he’d had a choice, her words messing into each other like a warm stew that mixed itself up into a perfect plan he’d easily agreed to.

 

He’d later listen to BB-8 tell stories of the mission, and Poe quickly learned that the boss of the game had been this small - _tiny -_ lightning bolt of a woman that he quickly came to admire, despite barely ever speaking to her. She slept, now; Finn watching over her, and Poe suggests a break - “a cup of caf” was the original plan - and it was only when Rey had said she’d stay with Rose that Poe got Finn to lope after him to the mess.

 

“I like her a lot,” Poe started, his mouth quirking into a grin he couldn’t quite hide. And, it seemed, Finn’s face a greater shade of red when Poe tried to broach the subject over fire-water (an ode to Holdo, only fitting), so did Finn, his face lighting up and the stories starting to flow from his mouth like he’d been _dying_ to tell _someone_ of Rose.

 

“When Rose, she, you know, just _tossed_ him the smelt like it was - like, she _knew_ it was all we had to negotiate with -” Finn leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing. “It was just -“

 

“Magic?” Poe sipped the barrel-bottom quality booze and winced. “You like her, huh?”  


A moment, a digestion. Finn wasn’t great with people, Poe knew this, and it was like watching a droid learn to emote for a second. “Yeah, she’s great.” Even tone. Cool, almost, and Poe laughed again.

 

“You’ve come a long way, baby,” he said, raising his glass.

 

“Meaning?”

 

Poe pointed at Finn with the hand holding his glass. The fire-water was starting to hit him fast, giving him the mental traction to rib his friend without worrying about Finn’s lack of - well, _ease_ in the emotional arena of conversation. “A few weeks ago, you were a Stormtrooper. 100% committed, nothing on the surface; and now you’re taking down ships with a pretty, smart, whip-crack of a woman, who, I hear, saved your ass more than just out there on the salt.”

 

Finn sighed. “BB-8 helped. DJ, too, but y’know.” He sipped his drink, the red in his cheeks deepening.

 

“Don’t think you’re hung up on BB-8, Finn.”

 

The reaction Poe’d wanted finally arrived. “Hey - no - look, don’t get it -”

 

“‘There’s not much I can say’?”

 

Finn shrugged, swallowing more fire-water than Poe thought he could manage, impressing him a little. “There’s a lot I can say, but -”

 

“But?”

 

“I want to say it to her.”

 

Poe smiled, and clinked his glass against Finn’s, resting on the table. “That’s all I need to hear, man.”

 

He changed the subject here, back to Canto Bight and a million other subjects Finn seemed to always want to drill him about (Poe admits to himself he wishes he had a chip of ‘The Galaxy’s History’ he could place in Finn’s brain, but the conversations that were becoming habit left him with a strange feeling of satisfaction - of education, like he was a teacher) - but later, he stops by the medi-hatch where Rose lays still.

 

He’s a little wasted, he’ll admit, but he gently pulls the blanket up to her shoulders and checks her vitals. She’ll wake, eventually, and Poe pushes back the kicks of hair that frame her face with a smile.

 

“You’ve brought him back to life, kid.” Her eyelids flicker a little, as if she hears him, and he smiles. “And I can't wait to tease you about it as soon as you wake up.”  


  
\---

 

_She dreams of salt._

 

_Red lines, the taste in her mouth, the monoski bouncing under her like a siren song of the history they were about to write. It’s frightening - validating, humanising - and she wonders if at the end of it, she’ll see Paige again._

 

_What would she say?_ “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” “I will avenge your honour”?

 

_I miss you._

 

_She aches, and it settles into her like a disease. But he’s there, a bright spark of confusion and determination, and she regrets electrocuting him. Maybe not, maybe so; he’s mostly floppy puppy limbs encased in a well-built, military trained body, but neither of them could easily say they were the best examples of Human Perfection in the galaxy._

 

_He rubs off on her, in small ways. The intonation of his voice resonates and she hears it mirrored in his own cadence. They’re learning, together._

 

_She crashes into him because he’s an idiot. A brave, sage, useless idiot._

 

_One she couldn’t let die, because her sister was a lost soul and she couldn’t spare another._

 

_\---_

 

Rey wonders what it’s like. To have a family, someone to care about, and she realises in Rose they share one of those things. They care about Finn, and so Rey takes it upon herself to send Finn to bed or off with Poe for a small reprieve being nurse to Rose’s sleeping form.

 

“Talk to her,” everyone said, “she can hear you even if you think she can’t,” so Rey does. About her life on Jakku, what she felt post...post _whatever_ it was that just happened.

  
About sand, water, portions; about bizarre animals and galaxy hymns she’d learnt from the ancient computer systems in her makeshift home in the desert. Not makeshift; a real home. Her home, but Rey tells Rose how she’s quickly learning that ‘home’ is less a place, but a construct. It’s people you gather around you, the yearning sated by companionship and a purpose that may not be clear yet, but slowly and surely, it was revealing itself. Infuriatingly so, but they’d all get there. Wherever ‘there’ was.

 

She talks of Kylo, when she knows everyone is asleep. About having him in her mind, the things she feels in her skin he’s taught her through the Force. About the curve of his nose, the moles on his face, the weight of his soul; all these things and more, after Poe introduced the worst kind of fire-water to her in a moment of silence that Rey needed broken, or she’d have been devoured by her thoughts.

 

Rose is pretty, Rey thinks. The kicks of her hair give the impression of a free spirit, but Rey understands from the life story Finn provides her that Rose’s grief mirrors her own. The kicks begin to wilt, so, with help from Lieutenant Connix, Rey learns how to curl Rose’s hair back as a small form of defiance - one against pain, suffering and the lingering doubt that you’re no-one without your family.

 

“I can’t wait to meet you,” she says, finishing the last curl and watching it settle into place - and Rey smiles when Rose’s eyes seem to flicker in response.

 

\---

 

_She dreams._   


_Of hands on her ribcage, under her breasts. A mouth meeting hers in unison and solidarity, children, a greenhouse. Simple things, a picture of Paige in their quarters; shared space and shared heart with an understanding that two broken things can make one good, solid whole - albeit with cracks._

 

_She dreams of Finn. She dreams of the future, and her heart is full._

 

\---

 

Day eleven, and she’s still asleep. Finn does nothing, says nothing; he’s run out of stories because how many times can you tell the same boring Stormtrooper tales without boring even a person in a coma to death?

 

_Don’t speak of death_ , he admonishes himself, and he picks her hand up and places it against his lips. “Don’t speak of death,” he says out loud, around the warmth of her hand, and Poe, walking past, places a hand on his shoulder before moving on.

 

What would he even say to her when she woke? He’s not even sure how to even say ‘hello’ half the time, but Rose always made it easy. Rose, Poe, Rey - they always made it easy, but Rose the easiest. He misses time they never even had, the stories she could tell him of _her_ world. Hays Minor, her childhood - Paige. Mostly Paige, her parents; families are something Finn finds himself obsessed with as he realises he’s building his own.

 

But it would be nothing without Rose, her tiny hand seeming impossible in his, and his eyes close against headache of grief he’s come to realise is a symptom of being less Stormtrooper and more human.

 

“Hey, dummy.”  


  
Finn’s eyes open like a shot, and a sleepy, hazy Rose stares back at him.

 

“Rose - you’re -” he goes to shout for the medical personnel, but she pulls his hand back to her groggily and presses it against her cheek.

  
  
“I dreamt of you.”

 

He smiles, and without hesitation, kisses her good morning as if it were the most natural thing in the whole, damn galaxy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you L. for the beta. <3


End file.
